Posted 2016-11-15 10:31 PM (#168880 - in reply to #168875) Subject: RE: Ram Trucks
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gard - 2016-11-15 9:30 AM http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/dodge-truck-owners-accuse-chrysler-of-vw-like-cheating/ar-AAkhCEA?li=BBnbfcN
The lawsuit against Fiat Chrysler -- created in 2014 through the merger of Chrysler and Fiat -- further calls into question the credibility of clean-diesel technology. Excessive emissions from the vehicles exposed the general public to noxious levels of smog, according to the consumer complaint. The claims involving Dodge Ram pickups from 2007 and 2012 predate the first known sales of emissions-cheating vehicles by Volkswagen by two years.?
The alleged fraud was prompted by a regulatory shift in 2001, according to the filing. Companies saw an opportunity for growth after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced stringent new emissions standards for heavy-duty diesel engines effective 2010. Chrysler and Cummins bet they could leapfrog the industry and produce a vehicle to meet those standards three years ahead of schedule, according to the complaint. Cummins increased its research and development budget by 60 percent from 2002 to 2007 to $321 million, about a quarter of which was dedicated to meeting the new standards. The outcome, though, was a flawed engine with limited capacity for trapping excess emissions, according to the complaint. Diesel engines, while more fuel-efficient, produce greater volumes of nitrogen oxide pollutants, or NOx. Cummins’s engines had limited capacity to store or dispose of the NOx. Instead of NOx being broken down in a process called regeneration, the pollutant had a tendency to escape from the vehicle, sometimes nearly doubling emissions and reducing the vehicle’s fuel efficiency as much as 4 percent, according to the complaint. The process concealed the true emissions output and wore down the car’s catalytic converter, which could cost as much as $5,000 to replace.
Wow...there are going to be some very disappointed Dodge/Cummins owners...